Emotional Healing

Emotional Healing

On the recommendation from a friend, I recently picked-up the book ‘The Complete Dictionary of Ailments and Diseases’ by Jacques Martel. I was told that the underlying theme presented within this otherwise stomach-turning book title would interest me and I found this description on the book cover – ‘the most comprehensive dictionary dealing with the conflicted thoughts and the emotions at the root of illnesses.’

Are the illnesses we experience unknowingly self-created through our mental and emotional traumas?

Jacques Martel says yes. He says ‘It is our lack of awareness of the laws that regulate the links between our thoughts and emotions and our physical bodies that leads us to experience situations of ailments and disease.’ These ailments arise when we experience emotional trauma and bury it in our subconscious mind. The buried traumatic emotion has a debilitating energy which disrupts the body’s natural flow, balance and condition and the body signals its discomfort with physical dis-ease.

A nice analogy of our emotional burdens is provided by Lori D’Ascenzo of Enlightened Feelings. ‘A teacher once asked her students to bring to school a sack of potatoes. For every painful experience they could recall, and for every person they could not forgive in their life, each student had to choose a potato and then carve into it the name of the incident and the date of the occurrence.

For an entire month the students were required to carry around their personalized sack of potatoes at all times. It lay beside their bed at night, sat with them at lunch and on the bus, and while they were with friends

The hassle of lugging around this load soon made it profoundly clear what a weight they were carrying around emotionally.

It seemed a rather high price to pay to hold onto people, situations and emotions that were of no positive value in their lives. The students began to see forgiveness and letting go as a gift to themselves, rather than a gift to others

We all carry emotional baggage to varying degrees–painful childhood memories, grief over the loss of a loved one, the devastation of a marriage or relationship break up, the trauma of physical or sexual violation. Who hasn’t suffered rejection, betrayal, hardship, failure, shame, longing, guilt, loss of self-esteem, or sorrow to some degree? ’

Martel shares some of his discoveries in the book’s Introduction. ‘…with my accumulated knowledge and experience, I can state that it is impossible for someone to suffer from diabetes without feeling a deep sadness or aversion towards a situation that the person has experienced. It is impossible for a person to suffer from arthritis without experiencing self-criticism or dissatisfaction with someone else or with certain situations.’

He and his dictionary contributors were inspired initially by the work of Louise Hay – the author of the huge best-seller Heal Your Body (1984) which addressed the mental causes for physical illness and the metaphysical way to overcome them.

Her key message to her readers is – ‘If we are willing to do the mental work, almost anything can be healed.’ The mental work involves acknowledging, accepting and then releasing the trauma; in effect dealing with it rather than suppressing and avoiding it.

Martel took Louise Hay’s initial research a step further with this comprehensive dictionary, dealing with over 300 ailments, from Allergies to Wrinkles. (About 20 researchers and contributors helped him with the effort.) For each ailment there are text descriptions of the physical conditions and the physical symptoms; of the several emotional or mental traumas or wounds which could give rise to the physical conditions and symptoms; and then the affirmation or words you recite to heal the traumas.

The key for him is what you do with the text descriptions for the ailment or disease you are studying. The words are spoken clearly and slowly, and syllable by syllable. Speaking the text out loud is a process for having a conversation with your subconscious mind, which best absorbs and understands your intention with deliberate, syllable by syllable, emphasis.

Martel describes his objective with his work as ‘…to be a tool for opening up conscious awareness and for inquiry into self-discovery. Because the only true power I have is the power over myself: I am the creator of my own life. The more aware I am, the more able I am to achieve the appropriate changes.’

He continues, ‘Everyone does not react to a given situation in the same manner because we are all different. Thus a manifestation of rejection can set off an illness in one person but not another. All depends on how I feel myself being affected, consciously or unconsciously. If my physical stress is sufficiently high, it will be converted into biological stress in the form of an illness.’

Further, he notes that ‘All illnesses are explained by a lack of love. It is said that love is the only healer. It is as though love has to enter through certain doors for healing to occur, through those very doors that were closed off from love from previous injuries sustained.’

As I flip through his dictionary and consider my own ailments, I wonder how his premise and methodology cannot be true. Haven’t I pursued the idea of Our Thoughts Creating Our Reality – especially those energized by emotion, and the power of our subconscious minds to manifest what we experience? (see previous posts). It only seems logical that thoughts and emotions gone awry, and buried and suppressed, would create an unwanted reality – that is ailments and diseases.

I like this book and look forward to working with it. If you are interested in getting a copy – try amazon.ca (Canada only, not available in the US) – that’s how I got it. Good reading and good health!